• OF  THE 

UNIVERS!  ? / jf  ILLINOIS, 

YORK  STATE  COLLEGE  OF  FORESTRY. 

CORNELL  UNIVERSITY. 


B.  E.  Fkrnow,  Director. 


BueeETin  6. 


February,  1903. 


TESTIMONY 

Before  the  U.  S.  Industrial  Commission 
in  Forestry  Matters, 


BY 


B.  E . FERNO  W, 

Director  New  York  State  College  of  Forestry. 


Reprinted  from  Vol.  X,  Reports  of  Industrial  Com- 
mission, 1901. 


ITHACA,  N.  Y., 
1902. 


TESTIMONY. 


Question  : How  came  the  New  York  State  College  of  For- 
estry to  be  instituted , and  what  is  its  object  ? 

Answer  : The  College  of  Forestry  was  instituted  by  act  of  the  Leg- 
islature of  New  York  State  of  March  26,  1898,  for  two  objects,  name- 
ly, to  educate  foresters  and  to  make  a demonstration  of  practical 
forest  management  on  a tract  of  timberland  in  the  Adirondacks.  The 
history  of  its  origin  may  be  briefly  stated  as  follows  : The  State  of 
New  York  had,  by  various  acts,  declared  for  a policy  of  forest  preser- 
vation, with  a view  of  protecting  the  watershed  of  the  Adirondacks. 
In  1885  the  State  possessed  a property  of  some  600,000  acres  of  tim- 
berland, acquired  by  tax  .sales,  mostly  culled  and  more  or  less  mal- 
treated, and  a Forest  Commission  was  instituted  for  its  management. 
Although  the  Commission  had  the  power  to  do  whatever  was  neces- 
sary to  institute  technical  forest  management,  it  failed  to  secure  ex- 
pert advice  and  to  formulate  any  coherent  plan.  In  exercise  of  the 
power  to  cut  timber  it  had  nothing  to  propose  but  selling  stumpage 
to  lumbermen,  who  continued  to  cull  the  woods  of  the  valuable 
spruce  and  pine  in  the  same  manner  as  before,  and  in  consequence 
those  who  saw  in  this  method  of  treating  the  woods  danger  to  their 
continuance  and  to  their  effectiveness  as  protectors  of  the  watershed, 
brought  about  the  insertion  of  a clause  into  the  Constitution  which 
forbids  the  cutting  of  any  trees  on  State  lands,  as  well  as  the  building 
of  railroads  over  State  lands.  By  these  clauses  the  application  of 
forestry  to  the  State  lands  was  effectively  prevented. 

At  that  time  the  public  and  the  advocates  of  forest  preservation 
were  still  ignorant  of  the  fact  that  forest  preservation  and  forest  utili- 
zation do  not  exclude  each  other  ; that  the  forest  is  preserved  and 
continued  in  the  same  way  as  the  human  race,  by  harvesting  the  old 
crop  and  reproducing  it.  In  order  to  demonstrate  this  fact  and  there- 
by pave  the  way  for  a change  of  policy  and  for  the  introduction  of 
technical  forest  management,  the  Superintendent  of  the  Forest  Com- 
mission proposed  the  institution  of  an  experiment  or  demonstration 
on  a small  scale,  which  was  to  show  how  a forester  would  manage  a 
forest  property,  harvesting  and  reproducing  the  wood  crop.  In  order 
to  remove  this  demonstration,  which  would  naturally  require  a con- 
siderable time,  from  the  danger  of  political  vicissitudes,  Governor 
Black  had  it  referred  to  Cornell  University,  and  the  College  of  For- 
estry was  instituted  as  the  agency  to  carry  out  the  experiment,  and  at 
the  same  time  to  educate  the  foresters  who  would,  in  the  future,  man- 
age the  State’s  forest  property. 


2 


The  State  purchased  and  gave  to  Cornell  University,  in  fee  simple 
for  thirty  (30)  years,  a tract  of  30,000  acres,  located  in  the  heart  of 
the  Adirondack^,  to  serve  this  demonstration  ; it  appropriated  a round 
sum  of  $30,000  to  start  the  experiment,  and  another  $30,000  to  serve 
as  working  capital,  with  the  proviso  that  the  profits  may  be  used  for 
the  management  and  improvement  of  the  property,  which,  after  thirty 
years,  is  to  revert  to  the  State.  For  the  College  a separate  annual 
appropriation  of  $10,000  has  been  made. 


Q.  How  is  the  College  mcniaged,  and  what  has  been  the 
(5°  attendance  ? 

^ A.  The  College  is  managed  as  an  integral  part  of  Cornell  Universi- 
y ty  under  the  Board  of  Trustees,  with  an  advisory  Forestry  Council  to 
s**  suggest  its  policy.  A director  and  two  assistant  professors,  with  the 
^ President  of  the  University,  form  the  faculty  or  teaching  force  ; the 
y experiment  station  is  managed  by  the  director  with  local  assistants. 

O The  full  course,  leading  to  the  degree  of  Forest  Engineer  (F.E.), 
comprises  four  years,  the  first  two  being  mainly  taken  up  with  fuuda- 
"q  mental  and  preparatory  courses  which  are  furnished  by  the  University 
^ faculty  ; the  last  two,  with  forestry  branches  under  the  professors  of 
® the  College.  Correspondingly,  the  tuition  fees  during  the  first  two 
years  go  to  the  University  ; during  the  last  two  years,  to  the  College. 
As,  however,  students  from  New  York  State  receive  free  tuition, 
--which  privilege  has  been  freely  used,  the  income  to  the  University 
^ has,  so  far,  not  been  in  proportion  to  the  advantages  derived  by  the 
^College. 

^ During  the  first  year,  ending  June,  1899,  four  students  were  regis- 
tered ; in  the  second  year,  the  registration  rose  to  17  ; and  in  the  third, 
-^present  year,  to  26  ; about  50%  each  year  coming  from  New  York 
q State.  The  indications  are  that  for  the  next  year  the  number  will  be 
QoX  least  doubled.* 

Besides  these  students  registered  with  the  College,  students  from 
„ pother  departments  of  the  University  have  taken  some  of  the  forestry 
0 courses,  notably  students  of  Agriculture,  Architecture,  Civil  Engineer- 
* ing,  and  Political  Economy,  so  that  the  number  of  students  benefiting 
Vby  the  College  have  been  26,  45  and  57  respectively  in  the  three  years. 

For  the  spring  term  of  the  junior  and  senior  ye^irs,  the  students  go 
riwith  the  professors  into  the  College  Forest,  and  are  instructed  in 
^practical  work,  timber  estimating,  forest  survey,  forest  measuring, 
planting,  thinning,  marking  trees  for  felling,  etc.,  besides  having 
lectures  on  fish  and  game  preservation. 


* During  the  College  year,  1901-2,  40  students  have  been  registered,  or  nearly 

three  times  the  number  of  the  (14)  students  remaining  from  the  previous  year. 

3 


Q.  Where  do  the  graduates  of  the  College  expect  to  find  em- 
ployment ? 

A.  The  first  and,  so  far,  the  only  graduate,  leaving  last  year,  has 
found  employment  with  the  New  York  State  Forest  Commission  ; of 
the  four  “special”  students  who  took  only  one  year  of  forestry  stud- 
ies, three  were  employed  by  the  Federal  Forestry  Division,  and  one 
took  position  with  a lumber  firm  in  Michigan.  Of  the  five  students 
graduating  this  year,  one  has  secured  a position  as  forestry  expert 
with  the  State  Agricultural  Station  of  Connecticut ; another  as  Assist- 
ant Director  of  Grounds  at  Chautauqua.* 

The  Federal  Government,  preparing  for  a management  of  the 
40,000,000  acres  of  forest  reservations  will,  no  doubt,  absorb  a con- 
siderable contingent  of  technically  trained  men  ; some  of  the  states 
besides  New  York  are  developing  forest  policies  which  contemplate 
State  Forest  Reservations  under  technical  management,  and  when 
the  value  of  men  trained  in  forestry  becomes  appreciated  by  logging 
and  lumber  firms,  openings  will  be  found  in  that  direction,  and  also 
as  managers  of  large  estates  including  forest  properties.  There  will 
also  probably  be  other  colleges  of  forestry  instituted,  calling  for  a 
teaching  force. 

Q.  Will  you  state  briefly  what  forest  management  implies  ? 

A.  Forest  management  implies  that  the  forest  is  to  be  continued  as 
such  ; just  as  agriculture  has  in  view  the  continued  use  of  the  soil  for 
food-crops,  so  forestry  has  in  view  the  continued  use  of  the  soil  for 
wood-crops.  Forestry  is  the  business  and  art  of  producing  wood- 
crops  and  deriving  a revenue  therefrom  ; it  implies,  therefore,  the 
harvesting  of  the  mature  crop,  in  order  to  make  room  for  a new 
young  crop ; the  forester,  therefore,  is,  in  part,  a lumberman,  the  dif- 
ference being  mainly  in  that  the  lumberman  merely  cuts  the  virgin, 
natural  forest,  without  any  reference  as  to  what  becomes  of  what  he 
leaves  ; he  works  for  his  present  pocket  interest,  without  conscious 
regard  to  the  future  ; the  forester  cuts  it  with  a view  to  securing  a 
second,  third  and  continuous,  and,  if  possible,  better,  economically 
more  valuable  crop;  he  works  for  the  present  and  the  future;  he 
must  be  willing  to  forego  some  of  the  present  profits,  which  the 
lumberman  takes,  for  the  sake  of  future  profits,  which  the  lumber- 
man does  not  take  into  consideration.  The  lumberman  compares  to 
the  berry  picker  in  the  wild  woods  ; the  forester  to  the  market  gardner, 
applying  skill  to  the  production  of  his  crop. 

*In  1901,  of  the  six  graduates,  and  six  special  students  and  two  seniors  who 
then  had  left  the  College,  four  had  found  employment  in  the  U.  S.  Department  of 
Agriculture,  one  in  the  U.  S.  General  Dand  Office,  three  in  the  Philippine  Bureau, 
two  in  State  Institutions,  4 in  private  employ. 

4 


There  are  two  parts  to  forest  management,  just  as  in  any  other 
technical  business,  agriculture  included,  namely,  silviculture,  which 
is  the  art  of  using  the  forces  of  nature  so  as  to  secure  the  best  wood- 
crop  ; aud  forest  economy,  which  concerns  itself  with  the  business 
arrangements.  The  time  element,  the  long  period  between  the  start- 
ing and  the  harvesting  of  the  crop,  from  50  to  100  years  and  more, 
renders  the  business  arrangements  peculiar,  and  sui  generis , different 
from  any  other  business,  and  hence,  especially  on  account  of  the  time 
element,  as  a business  by  itself,  forest  management  does  not  recom- 
mend itself  to  the  small  capitalist.  It  is  peculiarly  a business  for 
large  capital  and  for  the  State  or  long-lived  concerns,  like  counties, 
cities  and  other  communities.  The  State,  especially,  is  concerned  in 
the  future,  is  long-lived,  and  hence  can  afford  to  forego  present 
revenue  or  spend  money  now  for  the  sake  of  future  satisfaction. 

Of  the  three  factors  of  production,  nature,  capital  and  labor,  in 
forest  management  the  last  counts  least ; hence  the  small  capitalist 
who  expects  to  secure  by  intense  application  of  skill  the  largest  mar- 
gin from  his  capital  has  here  the  least  opportunity,  except  under  very 
special  conditions.  The  large  capitalist,  who  can  wait  while  nature 
is  accumulating  the  wood-crop,  who  does  not  want  to  depend  upon 
labor  and  its  uncertainties,  who  wants  a safe  continuous  investment, 
with  sure,  though  comparatively  small  returns,  is  best  fitted  to  carry 
on  the  forestry  business. 

Q.  Is  forest  management  profitable  ? 

A.  No  business  can  be  said  to  be  profitable  except  under  certain 
given  conditions.  Forestry,  applied  to  our  virgin  woods  as  a 
business,  working,  as  it  does,  for  the  future,  can  certainly  not  be 
profitable  immediately,  except  under  very  favorable  and  particular 
conditions,  namely  on  very  large  areas  of  well  stocked  timber  with 
large  capital.  In  the  long  run,  however,  it  can  be  made  and  will  be- 
come as  profitable  as  any  other  business,  and  as  it  has  become  in 
Germany  and  other  countries.  As  long  as  virgin  supplies,  which 
have  cost  nothing  to  produce,  compete  in  the  market,  there  is  natur- 
ally little  inducement  to  apply  skill  and  labor,  i.  e .,  money  upon  the 
production  of  wood  crops.  Nevertheless,  the  time  has  seemingly 
come  when  natural  supplies  of  timber  ready  for  use  have  been 
sufficiently  reduced  to  foreshadow  a balance  between  supply  and  de- 
mand, which  may  call  for  effort  to  increase  the  former,  and  those 
who  are  now  beginning  to  look  out  for  the  future  will  undoubtedly 
reap  their  reward.  This  is  especially  true  with  certain  kinds  of 
timber  supplies,  notably  pulp-wood. 

Reliable  and  intelligently  computed  statistics  on  standing  and 
growing  timber  supplies — which  do  not  exist  and  are,  to  be  sure, 

5 


most  difficult  to  obtain — would  stimulate  the  forestry  business  more 
than  any  other  agency.  Here  is  where  the  Federal  Government 
should  have  long  ago  taken  the  initiative. 

Q,  What  relation  has  agriculture  to  forestry  ? 

A.  Forestry  can  utilize  the  soils  which  are  not  fit  for  agriculture  ; 
hence  there  is  not  necessarily  any  interference  from  that  point  of 
view.  The  farmer  should  keep  all  the  poor  parts  of  the  farm  for 
wood  cropping,  which,  incidentally,  will  bring  him  profits  from  the 
otherwise  useless  portions.  Besides,  in  certain  locations,  the  bene- 
ficial effect  of  a forest  cover,  as  on  hill  tops,  steep  slopes,  especially 
with  stiff,  impermeable  soils  and  the  protection  against  winds  may 
induce  location  of  woodlots  even  on  agriculturally  valuable  soils. 
The  farmer  can  practice  silviculture  on  his  woodlot,  applying  such 
principles  as  I have  outlined  in  Farmers’  Bulletin,  No.  67,  U.  S. 
Department  of  Agriculture,  entitled  “ Forestry  for  Farmers.” 

But  it  is  not  to  be  expected  that  the  farmers’  woodlots  will  ever 
furnish  the  enormous  supplies  of  log  timber — at  present  not  much 
less  than  forty  billion  feet,  B.M. — which  our  market  requires.  Not 
only  would  it  not  pay  for  him  to  allow  his  trees  to  grow  as  long  as  is 
needed  for  such  log  timber,  but  even  silviculturally  speaking,  the 
woodlot  is  fit  only  for  growing  firewood,  posts,  poles  and  small  di- 
mensions. Log  timber  must  be  grown  on  large  contiguous  areas  by 
large  capitalists  who  can  afford  to  have  their  capital  tied  up  for  a long 
time  and  are  not  tempted  to  cash  it  as  soon  as  it  becomes  possible. 

Q.  What  function  does  the  State  Forest  Commission  have , 
and  what  relation  does  it  hold  to  the  College  ? 

A.  There  is  no  direct  organic  relation  between  the  College  and  the 
Commission,  except  that  the  Commission  is  by  law  required  to  fur- 
nish protection  against  fire  on  the  College  tract.  By  implication, 
rather  than  by  direct  language,  the  Commission  should  choose  its 
professional  employes  from  the  graduates  of  this  College,  and  last 
year  (1900)  it  did  so  employ  the  first  and  only  graduate.  The  Com- 
mission might  also  apply  to  the  College  for  any  expert  advice  that  it 
may  desire  in  formulating  plans  for  the  management  of  the  State’s 
forest  property.  Such  a relation  has  so  far,  however,  not  developed, 
and  in  fact  no  attempt  at  professional  forest  management,  as  far  as 
forestry  interests  are  concerned,  has  been  made  ; the  Commission  has 
hitherto  only  exercised  police  powers,  preventing  forest  fires  and 
stealing,  enforcing  the*  game  and  fish  laws,  looking  after  contracts 
arising  from  the  purchase  of  timber  lands  under  reservation  of  cer- 
tain kinds  and  diameters  of  softwoods,  etc. 

The  constitutional  clause  prevents  the  Commission  from  doing  any 
forestry  work  which  necessitates  the  cutting  of  trees.  There  would, 

6 


however,  be  many  other  opportunities  for  forestry  work  on  the  one 
and  one-half  million  acres  controlled  by  the  State,  like  the  planting 
up  of  burnt  areas,  the  survey  and  subdivision  of  the  forest  property, 
the  taking  of  stock  preliminary  to  future  plans  of  management,  in 
which  the  Commission  could  be  assisted  by  the  College  and  employ 
its  graduates. 

Q.  What  is  the  policy  in  the  management  of  the  College 
tract , and  what  has  been  accomplished  so  far  ? 

A.  The  College  tract  is  typical  of  the  Adirondack  woods,  a hard- 
wood forest  composed  of  sugar  maple,  yellow  birch  and  beech  mixed 
with  spruce  and  hemlock,  and  in  some  parts  white  pine,  besides  some 
other  species  occurring  sporadically.  Most  of  the  College  forest  has 
been  culled  by  lumbermen  of  the  merchantable  pine,  which  is  nearly 
extirpated,  and  of  the  spruce,  which  has  thereby  been  considerably 
reduced.  It  is,  therefore,  the  leavings  of  the  lumbermen,  a forest 
culled  of  its  most  valuable  materials,  which  has  been  set  aside  for 
this  experiment.  There  are,  besides,  the  usual  balsam  and  cedar 
swamps  and  considerable  areas  of  burnt  lands,  grown  up  to  aspen 
and  white  birch,  where  formerly  the  white  pine  was  the  dominant 
tree. 

The  silvicultural  policy,  briefly  stated,  is  to  replace  the  old 
decrepit  natural  forest  by  a new,  more  valuable  'forest  more  or  less 
rapidly. 

The  financial  policy  is  to  bring  about  this  change  in  the  conditions 
of  the  property,  as  far  as  possible,  by  using  only  the  profits  which 
come  from  the  harvest  of  the  old  crop.  The  first  step  necessary  was, 
therefore,  to  find  a market  for  the  hardwood,  which  did  not  exist 
locally.  Since  the  hardwoods  do  not  float,  railroad  construction  is 
absolutely  necessary  for  transporting  the  harvest  out  of  the  woods. 
This  means  that  a comprehensive  plan  for  the  entire  harvest  is 
necessary.  Since  the  proportion  of  logs  to  cordwood  in  these  hard- 
woods is  about  as  one  to  three  in  volume,  and  .since  for  the  success  of 
the  young  crop  the  debris  of  logging  must  to  some  extent  be  taken 
care  of,  it  was  even  more  essential  to  find  a market  for  the  cordwood 
than  for  the  logs.  Consequently  a contract  was  entered  into  with 
the  Brooklyn  Cooperage  Company  to  erect  stave  mills,  wood  alcohol 
plants  and  a railroad  for  the  purpose  of  taking  the  entire  hardwood 
crop,  logs  and  cordwood,  that  might  be  cut  for  the  next  fifteen  or 
twTenty  years. 

In  this  way  the  market  question  for  the  least  saleable  part  of  the 
crop — the  most  difficult  one  to  solve — was  settled  at  once.  The 
company  has  invested  a large  amount  in  construction  of  mills  and 
railroad,  and  the  first  year’s  cut  has  been  made,  harvesting  from  five 

7 


hundred  acres  round  2,500,000  feet  of  logs  and  about  8,000  cords,  be- 
sides small  quantities  of  softwoods  which  it  became  necessary  to 
remove.  Close  utilization  of  every  part  of  the  trees  cut,  the  saving 
of  the  little  odds  and  ends  and  of  the  inferior  materials  must  be 
attempted  to  secure  the  profit. 

Regarding  the  reproduction  of  a crop,  various  methods  are  avail- 
able, the  object  being  to  have  the  relatively  more  valuable  conifers 
reproduced  in  preference  to  the  hardwoods.  Whatever  young  conifer 
growth  is  present  is  to  be  saved  in  the  logging,  occasionally  seed  trees 
of  conifers  as  well  as  hardwoods  are  to  be  left  to  fill  out  the  crop.  A 
satisfactory  natural  reproduction,  however,  requires  that  the  old  crop 
be  removed  gradually,  while  the  young  crop  is  gradually  developing, 
giving  light  to  it  as  the  different  species  require.  But  such  a proced- 
ure— gradual  or  repeated  logging  over  the  same  area — is  costly  ; the 
scanty  allowance  of  working  capital  has  prevented  it  in  the  first 
season.  Besides,  nearly  all  the  hardwood  trees,  even  the  small  or 
young  ones,  are  defective  and  unpromising,  mostly  owing  to  injury 
by  fire,  while  the  spruces  which  might  be  left  as  seed  trees,  being 
shallow  rooted,  are  readily  thrown  by  winds  in  the  severer  openings, 
hence  it  appears  in  many  places  preferable,  less  expensive  and  surer 
of  results  to  artificially  secure  the  young  crop  by  planting.  Conse- 
quently, large  nurseries,  in  which  plant  material  is  grown  from  seed, 
to  be  transplanted  to  the  woods  when  two  to  three  years  old,  have 
been  established.  In  these  mainly  white  pine  and  spruce,  together 
with  other  coniferous  species  are  grown,  more  than  a million  seedlings 
being  now  on  hand. 

Planting  is  done  only  with  conifers,  since  the  hardwoods  are  able 
to  reproduce  themselves  readily  without  assistance,  furnishing  a suf- 
ficient amount  of  this  desirable  admixture. 

This  at  least  is  the  theory  upon  which  the  management  has,  so  far, 
proceeded.  The  burnt  areas  and  openings  are  also  to  be  gradually 
planted  up  to  useful  species.  So  far  about  165  acres  have  been 
planted  in  varying  manner,  for  experimental  purposes.* 

The  most  difficult  problem  here,  as  elsewhere,  unsolved  and  taxing 
either  ingenuity  or  the  purse,  is  protection  against  fire  and  getting  rid 
of  the  unavoidable  debris  that  comes  from  logging  when  the  brush- 
wood cannot  be  disposed  of.  An  attempt  to  utilize  the  latter  has  so 
far  not  proved  a success  financially.  Against  the  fire  danger  constant 
patrol  seems  to  be  the  only  help,  all  other  means  seeming  more 
expensive  and  less  efficient. 

*This  acreage  has  been  increased  in  1901  to  255  acres,  in  part  on  the  cut  area. 


8 


